Ottawa’s Colin Geitzler, a.k.a. Snidely Wildstache, has always been a bit of a savant of facial fuzz.

At the age of 12, his mother had to beg him to shave his neck beard for school pictures. By the time he was 14, he had a full beard and moustache. For much of his teen years he rocked a goatee.

Geitzler had to hold back a little during a brief stint in the military. Then, in 2012, he grew a moustache for a Halloween party and kept it for Movember. Four years ago, he started competing internationally. He even has a sponsor — Canadian Redneck, which sells beard care products.

Now 36, he’s had facial hair for two-thirds of his life, and he’s at the top of his game. This past weekend, Geitzler took second place in the “natural moustache” category of the Remington Beard Boss World Beard & Moustache Championships in Austin, Texas, the only Canadian to take home any hardware — which in this case included a plaque and belt buckle.

“I remember, as a young guy, wishing that my facial hair would grow quick,” said Geitzler Tuesday in a post-competition interview from the Austin airport, where he was awaiting a flight home.

“It takes a bit of getting used to as far as learning to eat. I enjoy soup, but it does get the moustache pretty wet. It’s an entertaining endeavour.”

Facial hair is an art form in Texas. The hurricane-battered state is, after all, home to bearded rockers ZZ Top. The championship attracted some 730 competitors from around the world in 27 categories, including the Dali (slender with tips curls upward) the English (slender and extending outward, classic silent movie villain style) and the Imperial (small and bushy with tips curled upward).

But it’s the freestyle category that is the attention-grabber. Competitors styled their facial hair into fanciful shapes, including stars, elaborate curls and maps of Texas. This, of course, requires a lot of styling products. The “natural moustache” category demands natural hair with no closed curls and no styling aids such as wax or hairspray. (The judges touch the moustache to ensure there’s no cheating.)

Geitzler curls his ‘stache — it’s a classic natural handlebar — with the help of a brush and hairdryer. Length alone isn’t the measure of the best natural moustache. It must also be lustrous and luxuriant. In fact, Geitzler’s barber trimmed six inches off the moustache, which at one time was long enough to pull behind his ears.

Geitzler is the president of the Ottawa Facial Hair Club, which sponsored the Beard and Moustache Championship of the North on Canada Day, raising $550 for the Canadian Diabetes Association. The club plans to hold another competition next year.

Colin Geitzler, aka Snidely Wildstache, won 2nd place in natural moustache at the 2017 Beard And Moustache Championships in Austin , Texas.

“It’s wonderful to see the Canadian bearding scene taking off,” says Geitzler, whose stage costume includes a red vest and top hat. He goes by the nom-de-barbe of Snidely Wildstache, a tribute to Snidely Whiplash, the moustachioed bad guy of the Dudley Do-Right cartoons. “I’m an aspiring cartoon character.”

Geitzler is a student right now, but he doesn’t think his facial hair would be an employment issue. He’s also single, but notes that “girls seem to love facial hair.”

And he plans to keep on competing, entering next year’s world’s in Antwerp, Belgium in the “Hungarian” category — big and bushy.

But not the freestyle category. “I have trouble drawing things that look like things,” he said.

Colin Geitzler’s advice for facial hair supremacy: Be patient. “Don’t give up on it. Just let it grow. Make sure it stays clean. I only trim it a few times a year to take off the split ends.”

His hero: German competitor Wolfgang Schneider, who has won six consecutive world titles for “natural moustache,” including this weekend’s competition in Austin. “He’s the guy to beat. He’s also a wonderful fellow.”

His inspiration: Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp in the 1993 Western classic Tombstone

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Big hairy deal: Ottawa man wins second in world championship of facial hair